


Extraordinary Machine

by livbartlet



Series: Leah Campbell: OFC of Awesome [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Bones, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5642686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livbartlet/pseuds/livbartlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 21st-century woman lands in the 23rd, gets a little lost, then finds a new home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extraordinary Machine

She’s going on a fieldtrip. Yay. As if she is eight years old again and the class is headed to the aquarium to see the sharks and the otters, touch the stingrays and the starfish.  
  
She is getting an outing. A few hours away from this - her hospital room or the pyschologist's office or the physical therapy room or the cafeteria for lunch, where they are allowed to socialize for 45 minutes. She knows the faces and most of the names, by now, of her...fellow...she is never sure of the correct word. She doesn't really know any of them, though.  
  
Because today, she is getting an outing and nobody else is.  
  
It is the essential problem of her situation. She is apart from the world. And she is apart from the people she should be included in, protected and embraced by.  
  
She can hear Dr. Carville coming down the hall, the usual gaggle of medical geese attending his every word, every conclusion, every possible answer to the great mystery of the London Miracle, of Ground Zero in particular. _Hello, my name is Leah Campbell, but everyone pretty much calls me Ground Zero. I am an instrument in the hands of scientists and seekers of medical fame._  
  
"...remarkable rate of recovery..."  
  
"...well-adjusted, very balanced..."  
  
"...ready for...perfect time to take larger steps..."  
  
He is a good doctor, she can't fault him in that regard. They are all good doctors. But that is the norm at Starfleet, or so she is given to understand. The doctors are brilliant and insightful and, in their way, understanding. She prefers the nurses, though. Nurses will talk to a patient, even if you are the most famous patient on the planet, possibly the quadrant. It's the nurses that fill in the gaps - music, gossip, hairstyles, nail polish - left by the ongoing crash course in 250 years of history.  
  
One of her doctors is Vulcan. Her psychologist is Betazoid.  
  
Pictures and video on a computer and a couple of aliens are all she's seen of the strange new world. It is not that she is feeling particularly brave - her asset in all of this has been sheer stubborness, not courage - but she is _itching_ to get out. So she glosses over the warning about possible press and looky-loos. Just get her out of here, please. In her new non-hospital-issue clothes - jeans and t-shirts are still in style, sort of.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
San Francisco is almost blinding in the summer sun - sharp and colorful, diverse and a little bit noisy, but well-ordered because that is the general rule these days. The route of this outing is a small walk from the hospital on Academy grounds through a garden and on to a market street, where she will get some tea and a pastry at a cafe, wherever strikes her fancy. If she ignores the entourage hanging a few paces back, she can almost feel as if she is really exploring, really out on her own.  
  
There is very little warning - a distant "Ms. Campbell!" and an exclamation about damn fool ideas from one of the student doctors - before she is surrounded by people - press - bodies pressing in too close, words and invasions, a blur, an overwhelming blur. Someone jostles her arm and she jerks away, turns, looks for some sort of help. She can feel anger rising up and tears threatening - does this new well-ordered world have no rules about personal space - even as her body freezes - oh, that's a rich word choice, isn't it - and she's trying to breathe, but that's not going so well.  
  
Her legs, the legs she couldn't use for 25 days after the cryo-thaw, the legs she has been using just fine for weeks now, her legs are starting to give out. There is a shooting pain she can't localize and then a gruff voice in her ear and a strong hand on her arm pulling her out of the mess.  
  
In the rush to get her back to the hospital, she doesn't catch his name, but she figures that as long as she lives - even if it involves another couple centuries on ice at some point - she will never forget his eyes.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
He knows that she is strong - stubborn and strong and overflowing with fire - he's seen it in the months she's been at Starfleet Medical, from the moment she opened her eyes and started _pushing_ the limits of what they all thought the human body was capable of, never accepting "no" as an answer.  
  
But her legs were crumpling and there was a shattered sort of look in her eyes when he finally reached her through the mob of intrusive idiots.  
  
So he carries her. All the way back to the hospital he carries her, and she feels fragile in his arms.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
She has an apartment in the city now, and it's been 11 months since her last relapse. She doesn't _do_ anything, because what is there to do? Most of her time here has been as a professional patient, a guinea pig for Starfleet doctors. And she doesn't _have_ to do anything, because money is taken care of, by, oh yes you guessed it, Starfleet. It means she's beholden to them. It means when they say "We'd like to send you on a brief tour on a starship, as part of our new PR campaign." she says "I would be happy to." and then does a little dance when the comm disconnects.  
  
Rationally speaking, she should be terrified of space travel. Vast, cold emptiness peppered with bright spots of death and hostility - the Battle of Vulcan that became the Battle of Earth, she had a front row seat to that particular fireworks show. But she isn't afraid, she's _thrilled_. It is possible that in space she will find something to do, the next step into this new life. But mostly, it should just be really damn cool.  
  
Space turns out nothing like she imagined or hoped. Starfleet wasn't kidding about the PR - she has a pre-approved press leech at her side almost all the time. She reports to medical every day - Starfleet left that part out. Turns out this is yet another experiment, and she is still the white rat. Can the cryonically-preserved 21st-century human survive space travel?  
  
She sees him, on the first day, the doctor whose eyes she will never forget. His name is McCoy and he is Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise and he hopes she enjoys her stay. After that, she doesn’t really see him. She almost thinks he is purposefully giving her a wide berth, but it’s only a stray impression, so she dismisses it. One of Carville's acolytes runs her daily checkups and scans.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
He doesn't like it. And he tells Jim exactly that. "I don't like it. Carville's so-called research is just another award-hungry stunt. These 'survivors' don't have any business being in space!"  
  
"Disease and danger, I've heard the speech, Bones. But when Fleet says jump, we say how high. At least when it comes to this."  
  
"Jesus Christ, Jim! Why are they twisting your arm so hard? And why are you letting them?"  
  
"Because we lost all those ships. And now, more than ever, it's all about PR. Those survivors are good publicity."  
  
McCoy only harrumphs and rolls his eyes. He hadn't been planning on winning this argument, he just had needed to say his piece.  
  
"She's pretty, isn't she?"  
  
"Who?" He wonders if he's in for another epic love song or Keatsian ode to a starship.  
  
"The one with the dark hair, the star of the little show Fleet is putting on here."  
  
"I guess so. I hadn't really noticed," he lies through his teeth. He's noticed _plenty_. It's the unvoiced portion of his objections. She is too damn pretty and she's technically his patient and he wants her off this ship so he knows she is safe and knows that _he_ is safe from doing something stupid.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
Her fellow survivors still don't like her much. She's given up on trying to tell them she didn't ask to be the _first_ \- first to wake up, first to walk, first to everything - didn't ask to be the so-called star of this circus. She mostly doesn't mind, but she keeps encountering the awkward silence of having just been the topic of conversation, of uncomplimentary gossip. It's unexpectedly hurtful. After months away from the main herd, she is stung by their perception that she has jockeyed for position, that she wants to lord that position over them. She just wants some peace. A life. What they all want.  
  
A private dinner with the Captain doesn't help. Oh, he is charming - golden and smart and confident and self-deprecatingly funny - but he seems like a boy in many ways, and she frankly is not tempted. She tells him flirting will get him nowhere and he accepts with grace and a wink.  
  
They become friends of a sort - he is interested in history from her intently first-person perspective, she is interested in seeing more of a starship than the civilian access corridors.  
  
The pregnant pauses become worse. The crew starts to look at her a little differently. They all think Leah is sleeping with Kirk. She finds she doesn't have the energy to deny the global assumption. Not when there are tours of the guts of Engineering and intriguing and completely-over-her-head lectures about warp and other technologies. Mister Scott decides he likes her, how could he not with a name like Campbell, and just like that she is drawn into a totally different social sphere on the Enterprise.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
"She's not sleeping with him, you know," Chapel says to him, out of the blue one day.  
  
"Excuse me, what?"  
  
"Leah Campbell and Captain Kirk. They're not having sex."  
  
"And you are sharing this with me why?"  
  
She raises her eyebrow at him, which is completely unfair because he is the one who is supposed to speak in disapproving eyebrow movement.  
  
"Do I even want to know _how_ you know?"  
  
"I've been assisting Dr. Garmer. I know how to read a bio-scan."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"You didn't hear it from me."  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
A starship is a massive thing. She thinks she will never grow tired of discovering what new thing around the corner she knows nothing about but that someone will gladly demonstrate and explain. Her assigned press person gets bored with her, because she's spending time in the library reading scientific papers and other things that conceptually she can only grasp at the edges. But it's something. It's a spark. Fuel for the curiosity. And curiosity may have killed the cat, but Leah is already on her second life.  
  
The thing about smooth sailing is that there is usually a storm ahead. It is something Leah forgets too easily. For a couple of days she has been free to do as she wishes without someone looking over shoulder and taking notes, free to explore Enterprise with the full blessing of its precocious Captain. It's all smooth sailing.  
  
Until Saturday night, a night of dinner and casual socializing between crew and civilians - the starship version of a party, thrown for the entertainment of their guests. It happens first over cheese and crackers, with a glass of red wine in her hand.  
  
"Must be nice, being the captain's woman, VIP treatment, special tours."  
  
She nearly drops the glass, but ignores the dig with steely resolve, imagines her spine is made of steel, unbendable, unbreakable.  
  
"Whore."  
  
"Bitch."  
  
Cruel whispers delivered in passing, by faces she doesn't see.  
  
"Ms. Campbell," her assigned press leech begins, innocently enough, as she sips her wine. "Everyone will be dying to know - is Captain Kirk as good in bed as the rumors say he is?"  
  
"Excu... what?"  
  
"Everyone knows you're sleeping with the Captain."  
  
"No, I'm not."  
  
The leech gives her a look of _Puh-lease_.  
  
"No, really, I'm not!"  
  
"Right."  
  
And that's when she sees it - the assumptive contempt written over half the faces in the room. "Excuse me." The glass drops from her hand. She thinks she hears it shatter as she walks away as fast as she can without actually running.  
  
Down corridors, picking up speed, rounding corners blindly until she finds it - the smallest of the observation lounges. It looks empty, but she doesn't look very hard.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
McCoy sees her out of the corner of his eye - a blur of movement, distress in the line of her shoulders, the fingers trembling at her mouth. Without thinking, he follows.  
  
The door isn't closed behind her - behind him - before she is pressed to the glass, head bowed, eyes closed. She shakes silently for a few moments, then a sob escapes her.  
  
He hangs back, suddenly sorry he's followed, feeling like an intruder.  
  
"I can do this," she whispers. "I can do this. It doesn't matter what they think, it doesn't matter." She slams a fist against the glass and cries a little harder.  
  
He coughs. Because he is no good with crying women, never has been, and there is no way to leave now without her hearing the door.  
  
She stiffens and turns her head, her eyes liquid and dark. "You?"  
  
"Me?"  
  
"You're the one."  
  
"What did I do?"  
  
"In San Francisco. You rescued me." She laughs a little, and it's still half a sob, but at least it's not full-out crying.  
  
"I can't believe you remember that."  
  
"I should be mad at you for interrupting my crying jag."  
  
"I can go."  
  
"No. Stay?"  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
He stays. He keeps a distance of at least two feet between them, but he stays.  
  
"When I was a little girl, I wanted to touch the stars. I can't believe I'm this close."  
  
"I suffer from aviophobia," he offers drily.  
  
"What are you doing up here, then?"  
  
"It turned out I was needed. My friends are here. My work is here."  
  
"I envy you. I don't have any of that. I did, before, but that was...before." She is grasping at points of light in the distance. She is drowning in his eyes. She knows his reputation as the grumpy, irascible doctor. She wonders where that came from.  
  
"You'll find them."  
  
"I hope so."  
  
"Trust me on this."  
  
"Okay, I will."  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
When Enterprise returns to Earth from its glorified pleasure/PR cruise, no one is more relieved than McCoy to be free of the gaggle of roaming idiots. And no one is happier than McCoy that Leah is staying. He doesn't know how Jim finagled it, doesn't really care. With the blessing of Starfleet, Leah Campbell is no longer a civilian, she is a yeoman posted on Enterprise.  
  
If there is gossip about her dinners with the CMO, it's minimal - his Momma didn't teach him how to put the fear of God into people for no purpose.  
  
Leah looks good in the uniform red. She looks even better out of it.  
  
  
\- -  
  
  
She is naked on his bed and his gaze is so intent, some part of her wants to shy away. "What are you looking at?"  
  
"You." His hands trace the outlining curves of her body lightly, down and up again, until his thumbs rest at the curve between her hipbones.  
  
"What do you see?"  
  
"You, only you." He presses a kiss inside the frame of his hands. "Speaking as your lover, not your doctor," he drawls against her skin as his hands renew their exploration. "I have to say, you are extraordinary."  
  
"Extraordinary. Dramatic word choice," she teases. Then gasps as his fingers find the path up her thighs to where she is heated and wet with wanting him, needing him.  
  
He has saved her more than once, now, so she lets herself fall, trusts that he will carry her, knows that he believes in her and believes in them.  
  
"Extraordinary," he rasps again as he fills her. They move and that is exactly how she feels - something beyond ordinary. Her hands are full of stars and promise.  
  



End file.
